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An Iranian woman walks past a mural painting west of the capital Tehran on February 21, 2012 that depicts two pilots who were killed during the 1980-88 Iran-Iraq war. — Photo by AFP

BAGHDAD: An Iraqi official said Iraq and Iran have exchanged the bodies of 111 soldiers killed during the two countries' 1980-1988 war.

Mahdi al-Tamimi, an official in Iraq's Human Rights Ministry, said the remains of 98 Iranians and 13 Iraqis were returned to their native countries during a ceremony on Tuesday.

Al-Tamimi said the swap at a border checkpoint near the southern Iraqi city of Basra brings the number of Iraqi bodies received since 1996 to 2,262. Iranians have received 1,597 bodies of their fallen.

More than one million people from both sides were killed or went missing during the eight-year war.